10 Email & Social Media Marketing Strategies for 2012

The holidays have come to a close and new years resolutions are in full swing! Fulfill your resolution about amping up your email and social media marketing strategies with these helpful tips.

Plan for 2012 Now

Pull out a calendar or a white board and plan your strategy for the entire year in January. Start with major holidays or events and then move on to creative events like your founder’s birthday, your website’s anniversary or even something fun like National Coffee Day. Think about how you can use email and social media marketing together to strategically and systematically engage with your customers.

Marry Email and Social

Ask for emails in your social properties and talk about your social properties in your email. For example, send people to your email sign-up form in Facebook and send an email to your list telling them about the value of following you on Twitter.

Ask Three Times

On your website, ask for an email address 3x. Put a sign-up form on your homepage (above the fold, please!), during checkout and after checkout. Remember, getting their email address at checkout doesn’t mean they want marketing emails. You need to get separate permission to email promotions.

Find Social Media Advocates, Not Fans

A fan likes you on Facebook or follows you on Twitter, but an advocate TALKS about you. Many demographics, especially women and millennials, will buy a product or interact with a brand after it is mentioned by a friend. Ask people to post to Facebook when they purchase with you or make a donation.

Create a Community

Don’t think of social media as a billboard, think of it as a cocktail party. If you do all the talking, you won’t have many friends. Comment on others’ walls, re-tweet relevant material and offer valuable information. For example, tweet “5 tips for picking a ripe avocado” instead of “save $5 off avocados!”

Use Video in Email

You could grab your favorite video off YouTube or you could use your own device to take video of people at work or even your employees saying hello. Email messages with embedded video can increase clicks and conversions.

Ask Your Customers

What do they want? The next time you post on Facebook, ask your customers what they want to see today. “What type of information do you want us to provide on social media?” You will be surprised how much conversation this provokes.

Treat Customers Like Friends

Talk to customers like you talk to your old high school friends. Would you post on your mom’s wall, “Save 20% off at ABC Shoes today”? No, you would say, “Hi Mom! Just wanted to let you know…I bet you can find something for spring.” The more conversational your posts are, the more likely they are to be read and interpreted as information and not an ad.

Split-Test Images

Send the exact same email but use two different images and see if one image gets more clicks. Images are the most powerful part of your email, and testing the image could mean significant increases in engagement as you learn what your customers respond to in their emails.

Use Google Analytics to Measure the Success of Your Email Campaign

Google Analytics is free and it is a free feature to iContact Premier users. There is no reason to not measure your email marketing, and it will be the best investment you make this year. Talk to your Strategic Advisor today!

The former CEO of P&G (AG Lafley) said “we need to re-invent the way we market to consumers, we need a new model.” Mark Zuckerberg said “pushing out your message wasn’t enough anymore.” And he’s right! Facebooks click-thru rate is slightly above 1% and thats about industry standard. The old model’s broken folks, it’s time we re-engineer the concept for the digital age and social as the name implies, is not the best platform to do it!